Urinals/100 Flowers:
Quotes & Reviews

PRESS RELEASE EXCERPT

Kevin Barrett, Kjehl Johansen, and John Talley-Jones, collectively 100 FLOWERS, have been fusing and bending contemporary musical styles since 1978 with their inception as the URINALS. Although a classically underground and therefore seldom seen band for the longest time, they have shared bills with artists as diverse and vital as X, THE GOGOs, THE LAST, BLACK FLAG, RED CROSS, THE MIDDLE CLASS, ROKY ERICKSON, THE FLESHEATERS, NEEF, 45 GRAVE, BPEOPLE, HUMAN HANDS, LEAVING TRAINS, MONITOR, CIRCLE JERKS, MINUTEMEN, SAVAGE REPUBLIC, MEAT PUPPETS, GUN CLUB, PLIMSOULS, DESCENDENTS, MISFITS, WALL OF VOODOO, ANGRY SAMOANS, FEAR, CHRISTIAN DEATH, and THE ADOLESCENTS.

A TESTIMONIAL - on the release of 100 YEARS OF PULCHRITUDE

A year ago who would have thought it possible? The Berlin wall has been torn down, and now this, the complete works of 100 FLOWERS on one compact disc. This includes the rare eponymous debut album, 2 never previously released songs, 3 cuts from compilations (including the apocalyptic "Reject Yourself"), and the entire "Drawing Fire" EP, which pushed the borders of the group’s garage/punk sound to include and surpass funk and industrial. All told, 28 monstrous, sub-underground hits by the collective SLASH magazine one called "the best band in the world, better than the Rolling Stones or the Blasters."

Actually, those cultural reference points barely do justice to the work of these iconoclasts, 3 UCLA students who formed the URINALS in an act of whimsy, later to rename themselves 100 FLOWERS in deference to Chairman Mao and their commercial instincts. The trio (who later went on to subversive notoriety with TROTSKY ICEPICK, GOD AND THE STATE, and RADWASTE) were the inventors of geometric rock. They were often tagged as the American WIRE, perhaps because of their condensed, witty, erotic, surreal lyrics paired to a "pop-revisionist" minimalism. To give the uninitiated an idea of their real place in the rock cosmos, these scientific hedonists influenced and helped out then-undiscovered groups like the GUN CLUB, MINUTEMEN, and MEAT PUPPETS. If SONIC YOUTH is Shakespeare, then these trendsetters and publicity dodgers (like the RESIDENTS without costumes) are Plutarch.
-- Falling James (Moreland, of the LEAVING TRAINS)

QUOTATIONS

"(a) mesmerizing combination of intensive punk and searing psychedelia" -- Michael Auerbach, LA WEEKLY

"they’re incredible" -- Jeffrey Pierce, SOUNDS

"fantastic, absolutely" -- Will L’Amato, SLASH

"Personally, I feel that they are one of the, if not the best band in LA" -- Craig Lee, SLASH

"compellingly intense" -- Greg Shaw, BOMP

"this band is f*ckin’ great" -- Roberto Hill, FLIPSIDE

"an indefinable but unique and tough music that mixes contemporary punk, psychedelia, a splash of heavy metal, and experimental madness" -- Chris Morris, LA READER

"about as musical as a dial tone on a telephone or a pneumatic drill" -- Rudy Hoffman, personal letter

"incessantly, unsparingly, uninvitingly repetitive" -- VARIETY

"punk rock perverso" -- Claudio Sorge, ROCKERILLA

Urinals/100 Flowers: Quotes & Reviews

PRESS RELEASE EXCERPT

A TESTIMONIAL - on the release of 100 YEARS OF PULCHRITUDE

QUOTATIONS

All materials on this web site are protected by copyright. © 2008, Happy Squid Records. All Rights Reserved.

Urinals/100 Flowers:
Quotes & Reviews

All materials on this web site are protected by copyright.
© 2008, Happy Squid Records. All Rights Reserved.